The Wishing Well
by SoftlySweptAway
Summary: All who see me please take heed, Of my humble stature and generous deed, For I hold great power for all who care, To have one payment willing to spare.


**The Wishing Well**

"You bitch, you goddamn evil bitch!"

She warmly smiled back at him, her cheerful grin bright in his face. He glared back at her with all of his might.

"It's all your fault! You think this is funny don't you! Well guess what bitch, one of these days I'm gonna rule the world! And the first thing I'm gonna do is get rid of you!"

Gilbert huffed, out of breath after his little outburst. Goddamn sun! When he was king of the world there would be no ridiculously hot summer. Or freezing ass winters! Only a moderately warm spring that obeyed him! Gilbert would be boss and everyone and everything would bow down to him!

"Bruder, I told you to go away! I do not want the neighbors to call the cops again. Go hang out with your friends already!"

Gilbert could only glower back at Ludwig, too out of breath to reply. It was too damn hot to start a fight, no matter how much he wanted to. He plopped himself down in the grass, and continued to stare at the sun. His eyes watered and burned, but he would not give in! After a few seconds his resolved shattered, causing him to fall into another fit of furious curses. Stupid Ludwig kicking him out of the house. So what if he teased Italy about being a girl, the guy was such a useless pansy anyway. He honestly had no idea why Ludwig hung out with him. He would defiantly die of heatstroke, and then Ludwig would be sad that his wonderful responsible brother were to die. Yes he would be so guilty and regret ever kicking him out of the house.

Gilbert smirked at his thoughts, content with the knowledge of Ludwig's potential guilt. But his happiness was short lived, the sun was still red-hot and it was beginning to make him uncomfortable, time to go visit Francis and Antonio. With some effort, he heaved himself up from the ground and walked towards the garage. He'd swipe Ludwig's hot car, pick up some cute girls, hang with his friends, and hopefully crash it by the end of the day. Ludwig would be so pisse-

"God damnit!" Gilbert yelled in frustration.

"Of course it's locked! Why wouldn't it be?"

The evil garage door stood in front of him in all if its glory. Just another thing to get rid of when he was king. After a swift aggravated kick, he walked around the house trying to think of another way to get to Francis's house. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of anything. He couldn't take the bus cus' he had no money and Ludwig sure as hell wasn't giving him any, and he didn't even attempt to use Feliciano's lame bike laying haphazardly on the front lawn because bike's were for losers and Gilbert sure as hell wasn't a loser. Gilbert huffed once more.

It looked like he was going to walk.

Only a few blocks later did Gilbert began to grow tired. He wore heavy jeans and a black tee-shirt, making the sun's vicious rays attack his skin. This was beginning to suck. As he walked down the side walk passing many houses on the outskirts of the town, he noticed something odd. In the corner of his eye lay a small well. It was barely concealed by the small bushes around it and laid next to a rusty chain linked fence. The sun had shined its obnoxious rays on it, making it look angelic. Any normal person would either shrug and keep walking, or become suspicious by the strangely placed well. Gilbert however, was not a normal person. Instead he curiously walked over to the little well and inspected it. It was made out of plain white marble, with small delicate letters on the surface. In sophisticated German it read;

"_All who see me please take heed,_

_Of my humble stature and generous deed,_

_For I hold great power for all who care,_

_To have one payment willing to spare._

Gilbert had read the words in disbelief before sporting an evil smirk.

"Well I'll be damned, sounds like this here's a wishin' well."

He cackled evilly before remembering the well's side of the bargain. Damn he needed a payment to get his awesome wish granted. Well he was shit out of luck because no matter how psyched Gilbert was, he was still broke.

Having closed his eyes in frustration, they opened wide at a realization. So what if he didn't have any money! It could be any sort of payment right? He then began furiously digging through his pockets for _something_ of value. Finally, he found it. Thrusting his hand into the air with the sun's light bouncing off its smooth polished surface, it shone with all of its hidden glory. In Gilbert's hand lay a simple yet holy bottle cap.

"Thank god I saved this from that beer last night or else I would be screwed!"

With another evil cackle, he tossed the cap into the well and made his wish;

"I wish I were king of the world!"

With barely concealed anticipation, he waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

"What the hell is this shit? I didn't get my damn wish granted!"

Gilbert cast the well an evil glare, well fuck it. It was just some dumb well, he didn't need it! He would become king on his own!

Gilbert turned to leave, when something scary happened. The sky suddenly turned ominously dark; as if a possessed storm cloud had eaten the innocent fluffy white clouds and digested them into its obese stomach. A sharp gust of wind picked up, nearly knocking Gilbert onto his side.

"What the fu-!"

The wind began to encircle him; its power pulsed under his skin. The lack of oxygen from the vortex was making him lightheaded. Gilbert closed his eyes in an attempt to thwart off the nausea. It didn't help at all and he promptly passed out.

* * *

When Gilbert woke up two things happened. One was that he discovered he had a splitting headache. The other was that he was lying flat on his back in a large dark room.

"Where the hell am I?"

He was greeted only with silence. How the hell did he get here anyway? Oh wait, he remembered something, something about a well and beer bottle cap. Why the hell would he remember something so weir-oh snap! Gilbert sprang to his feet ignoring all the blood rushing to his head. That's right he made a super awesome wish! And it was granted too! It had to be, what else could that monster gust of wind be? Cackling he headed for the nearest exit, kicked open the heavy door and sprang out into the light.

"Hello servants, are you ready to bow down to the awesome me?"

His 'servants' paid him no mind and went about their business. Gilbert looked around in shock. What the hell was everyone doing? Why weren't they obeying his awesomeness?

It was at this point when Gilbert finally took notice of his surroundings. He found he was in a brightly lit store packed with people. On closer inspection, he discovered that the shoppers themselves were just as cheap as the stores paint job. They were all seedy looking people rifling through second hand goods. Gilbert had never felt so ripped off before.

"What the hell is this?" He screamed, scaring the teenage girl at the cash register.

"I'll say again! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?"

"Sir Sir! Please calm down, your scaring our customers!"

Gilbert turned to be greeted by a short middle aged man. He was almost completely bald and looked far too stressed out for Gilbert's taste.

"Can you tell me where I am, and what the hell I'm doing in a dump like this?"

The man gulped nervously and glanced to the side avoiding Gilbert's gaze.

"W-well sir, if you don't recall, y-you were hired as the manager of this fine establishment" He said as if his salary didn't depend on it.

Gilbert stared at the pathetic looking man in disbelief. At first he didn't want to believe him. He didn't remember being appointed manager of a store, let alone being hired for anything. As he thought this, he remembered his wish. What did wishing he was king of the world have anything to do with him managing a thrift store? Didn't these wishes backfire based on loopholes and not sheer randomness?

Gilbert huffed, completely pissed off. There was no way in hell he was sticking around in a place like this. As he turned to leave, the short man experienced a moment of bravery and grabbed Gilbert by the arm.

"Sir, you can't leave now. If you do, you won't get paid for this week's work."

Now Gilbert normally could have cared less and went on his merry little way, but the prospect of being paid a week's amount of cash for work he didn't do sounded pretty damn good. So he grinned evilly at the little man and asked;

"So what do I do?"

Ten minutes later Gilbert was standing next to the blonde teenage girl behind the cash register barking useless orders. Apparently his job as manager was to make sure everything ran smoothly in the store. In Gilbert's book, it meant bossing everyone around.

"You call that making change? That took you freakin' forever! Work faster, work faster!"

The girl could only glare back at him and continue her work. Obviously she didn't want to get fired from her job, no matter how crappy it was. Gilbert grinned once more at her obedience. Maybe being manager wasn't so bad after all.

"Alright, just keep working. I'm going to go check up on my next victim, I mean _employee." _With that he skipped on over to the next poor unsuspecting person.

"Hey muscles, how's it going?"

A large tan man stopped stacking old dusty books to inspect Gilbert. He huffed at his comment and proceeded to work. Gilbert did not like being ignored.

"Hey bub I'm talking to you. You better listen up or I'm gonna get your ass fired."

The man stopped his work again to look back at Gilbert once more.

"What?" He asked, waiting expectantly. Gilbert grinned at his submission.

"Now that's more like it! Now I need you to finish stacking these books ASAP, got it?"

The man gave Gilbert an incredulous look.

"That's what I was doing."

Gilbert grinned once more. The poor guy wouldn't know what hit him.

"Yeah, I know but I want to make things more fun. You see I'm gonna time you while you work and if I feel you haven't stacked all these books fast enough…"

He paused for dramatic effect, looking at the beefy man expectantly. He in turn stared back expressionless, not a trace of anxiety on his visage.

"Then you're fired! Now ready, set go!"

With surprising speed, the man began to stack books faster than ever before. Gilbert stared at his watch, yelling nonsense in the hopes of throwing him off. After exactly a minute, the huge pile of books was stacked neatly on the shelf. Gilbert was very disappointed.

"Okay fine! You good for now, but next time you better stack them even faster!"

Pissed off, Gilbert stalked away to _inspect _more people. Just when he spotted a middle age women folding clothes, he saw a familiar brunet in the corner of his eye. Turning around in disbelief, he got a full view of the stiff looking man.

"This is _too _good to be true!"

The man, startled by Gilbert's outburst, turned to him in absolute horror.

"G-Gilbert, w-what are you doing here?"

"I work here specs, but enough about me. Enlighten me as to why you would be shopping in a dump like this."

Roderich glanced around him, unable to meet Gilbert's mocking gaze.

"W-well I heard that there was a new store open in the area, so I thought it would be alright if I checked it out just in case there was anything good here.

Gilbert leaned in closer to Roderich, grinning ear to ear.

"Of course you were; it had absolutely _nothing _to do with your frugal attitude, right?"

Roderich stuttered surprised.

"O-Of course not."  
"I'm sure."

"A-anyway" Roderich stuttered trying to change the subject.

"How come you're working at a place like this anyway? I didn't peg you for the working type."

Now it was Gilbert's turn to be embarrassed. He was not proud to be working in a second hand thrift shop.

"W-well, I decided that the awesome me needs to show others how well I can work. After all, I'm a ballin' manager."

Roderich stared at Gilbert in shock. In all of their years together, he had never seen Gilbert work before. Not even when important paperwork needed to be done for the sake of his country, Ludwig had always been the one to do all hard work.

"I-If you say so Gilbert. I-I'm just going to head home now. I can see now that this isn't a store I wanted to shop at."

With that Roderich scurried out of the store, not able to stand another minute of Gilbert's smug attitude. Gilbert laughed heartily at his retreat. Teasing Roderich was just too fun to pass up.

Gilbert strolled back over to the balding middle aged man; there was something he just had to ask.

"Hey old man! How long has this store been around for anyway?"

The man looked up at Gilbert from his place at the cash register nervously.

"W-well sir this store's been in business for over a year now."

Gilbert grinned while the small man shirked away from him in fear. He knew it; looks like Roderich would have to find another thrift store to shop at.

After that event, the day passed by relatively quickly, for Gilbert anyway. He had a lot of fun tormenting his employees. For the employees themselves, they looked like they couldn't get out of the store fast enough. Gilbert laughed to himself when they all briskly left the building. Today wasn't as bad as he thought.

"Hey old man, don't run away yet! I still need my money!

"W-why yes, o-of course."

He then handed Gilbert his paycheck, and sprinted out of the store before Gilbert could torture him some more.

Gilbert grinned once more and ripped open his check.

"Alright, what I get?"

It took Gilbert a moment to recover from shock. There on the check it read;

"Thirty dollars? That's it! That's like seven bucks a day! What the hell, what a rip!"

Pissed off, Gilbert shoved the check into his pocket

"This place is a dump! Time to get the hell out of here!"

With that, he stepped outside into the twilight. Before he made his way to visit his friends and tell them all about his little adventure, he took one last look at the building. Above the front entrance was a simple little sign. Much to Gilbert's surprise it read;

"Welcome to _The World _Thrift Mall!"

Gilbert stood stunned for a moment before grinning.

"Well I'll be damned! There was a loophole!"

* * *

**A/N: **Oh my god! I can't believe I actually finished this! I'm so proud of myself. I haven't submitted a fan fiction in ages, and this is the first fan fiction submitted to my new account. I hope you all enjoyed it; obviously you did if you actually took the time to read my authors note. (I never do) Anyway, give some feedback, not some "oh it was so good bye" review. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't like about it, if you're actually that moved that is. I hope you were. That way I know what to do for my next fan fiction. Ciao!


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